KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) remained positive during the outgoing week ended on February 04, on the back of fresh buying mainly by local investors.
The benchmark KSE-100 index surged by 831.74 points on week-on-week basis and closed at 45,909.65 points. The KSE-100 index crossed 46,000 psychological level during the week however failed to sustain this level due to profit taking in some sectors.
Trading activities also improved as average daily volumes on ready counter increased by 54.3 percent to 289.10 million shares as compared to previous week’s average of 187.41 million shares while average daily traded value on the ready counter increased by 42.7 percent to Rs 9.68 billion against previous week’s Rs 6.78 billion.
BRIndex100 gained 103.55 points during this week to close at 4,727.34 points with average daily turnover of 261.325 million shares. BRIndex30 increased by 491.61 points on week-on-wee basis to close at 18,411.08 points with average daily trading volumes of 194.430 million shares.
The foreign investors however remained on the selling side and withdrew $4.4 million from local equity market, while Insurance also offloaded holdings worth $4.01 million during the week. On the other side of the scale, Other Organizations, Mutual Funds and Banks were the major buyers with a net buy of $3.91 million, $2.97 million and $2.11 million respectively. Total market capitalization increased by Rs 136 billion to Rs 7.851 trillion.
“After gaining 1.8 percent on month-on-basis during January 2022, the positive momentum continued during the first week of February 2022 with index gaining 1.85 percent on week-on-week basis with the anticipation (and finally announcement) of agreement with IMF to revive the program setting the tone”, an analyst at AKD Securities said.
The market participation, as picked by average daily turnover, picked up significantly as well with trading volumes increasing 54 percent to stand at 289.1 million shares compared to 187.4 million shares seen during the previous week.
During the week, activity shifted slightly to small-cap stocks from mainboards as indicated by KSE-100 to KSE-All volume compressing to average 75.0 percent compared to 82.3 percent in the previous week.
In terms of top performing sectors, within mainboard, Textile weaving ran out clear winner with a gain of 7.2 percent while the Power Generation sector (down 3.0 percent) stood as the major underperformer. OMCs, Chemicals and Refineries also posted solid returns during the week.
Stock wise, top gainers were SHEL (up 16.5 percent), PAEL (up 16.1 percent), NML (up 9.4 percent), COLG (up 7.2 percent) and ATRL (up 6.5 percent) while top laggards were HUBC (down 8.6 percent), SML (down 4.7 percent), CEPB (down 4.2 percent), ISL (down 2.3 percent) and FHAM (down 2.2 percent).
An analyst at JS Global Capital said that the KSE-100 index gained 832 points during the week as it closed the week at the 45,910 level. Foreign investors remained net sellers which accumulated to $4.4 million this week. Largest selling was witnessed in the Technology Sector ($2.0 million) followed by the Banking Sector ($1.7 million) and the Fertilizer Sector ($0.6 million).
Major reason for the positive momentum this week was IMF’s approval of the $1.0 billion tranche for Pakistan under the Extended Fund Facility. In order to resume the program, the government had to take some difficult decisions including, but not limited to, revoking a number of tax exemptions allowed to the corporate sector and to pass a bill in the parliament to ensure SBP autonomy.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022